3 out of 5

Label: init Records

Produced by: Houston

An exciting and solid return, if lacking in anything definitive. But: without trying to be too backhanded, that’s kind of the Houston sound, stewing arena rock and their shoegazey metal Shiner influence into a burble of riffs, always satisfying, but maybe not being the recipe – sticking with stew here, folks – you first reference. I think this style was ratcheted up and down to achieve nigh-rock perfection on Bottom of the Curve, but I appreciate that this resurgence is modest: Houston just trying to deliver some rock, looking both forward and back. And then some remixes?

The forward comes in the shape of two new tunes, Man O’ Warrant and What Doesn’t Kill You. Man o’ Warrant I don’t think fulfills the pun of its title, but it’s a badass instrumental opener, definitely recalling Curve’s instantly catchy riffage, married to a bit more momentum. The band doesn’t quite seem to know how to wrap this up, though, giving us a hard stop / transition in the middle that sounds like another song – doesn’t really connect to / conclude the first half. But it is, at the least, further excellent riffage.

What Doesn’t Kill You: man, this could be off of Curve, with the big-sized guitar chunks, booming drums, and vocal trill. The progress comes in some lyrical maturity: more pointed, less vague than some past efforts.

An updated version of Head Like a Road Map‘s Ugly Tree shows how the DNA has been strong the whole while: the tune still bears the kind of stylistic blase that bemarked that album – where the group’s Shiner appreciation maybe held them back. But it’s presented with the confidence of their age, and gains further ownership by being a cover; that is, if this was a Shiner song, it’s now Houston covering a Houston song that was a Shiner cover.

Bryan Hanna’s remixes (presumably of the two new tracks) are not uninteresting, but I’m not sure I can give them much returning listening value. I dig that they’re not typical remixes, and stick firmly to the rock realm, but by mostly isolating and looping the drums, the songs are robbed of their peaks, so neither quite satisfying as rock or something danceable. They listen like experiments, which, again, is interesting, but probably not what I’d be returning to this EP for.